Our take: Wrong call on juvenile lifers by Pa. high court

Left, Jordan Wallick, convicted of homicide at age 15. Right, Michael Lehman at age 13. Lehman was involved in a homicide at age 14. (Submitted)

Of all the "juvenile lifers" from York County, Jordan Wallick might be the least deserving of a chance at a reduced sentence.

The killer of James Wallmuth III during a 2011 robbery at Foundry Park was described by a psychiatrist during a juvenile decertification hearing as sociopathic and unlikely to benefit from treatment available to those adjudicated in juvenile court -- and he was later tried as an adult.

But under a recent state Supreme Court ruling, he's the only juvenile lifer from our county who will have an opportunity for resentencing.

The Pennsylvania high court, responding to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that automatic life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional, decided against retroactive resentencings in cases that have been finalized.

Only cases that are still working through the appeals process are eligible for resentencing hearings.

In York County, that would be Jordan Wallick's case.

It was a misguided decision by the state Supreme Court -- one that some legal scholars predict will eventually be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If it's unconstitutional to automatically sentence a juvenile to life without parole after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, why was it not unconstitutional before?

Unconstitutional is unconstitutional. And those who were sentenced to life as juveniles should get a new sentencing hearing.

Advertisement

That's not to say that all -- or even any -- York County juvenile lifers should be released. But they all committed their crimes before they were adults -- as teens, without fully formed senses of morality.

There's a reason we don't let kids drink or drive. It's because they are not yet fully mature.

And, as a recent YDR series on juvenile lifers suggested, some of those from York County who killed as juveniles appear to have matured as adults in the correctional system. They have remorse for the mistakes they made as teens. They've served their time as model inmates.

Perhaps the poster boy for such second chances locally is Michael Lehman.

When he was 14, he was involved in the murder of Kwame Beatty, a 23-year-old counselor at a group home in North York.

Lehman was one of four convicted of first-degree murder for the 1988 killing. He acted as a lookout, not participating in the actual stabbing.

All four deserved punishment for the brutal death. But three of them were juveniles and one -- ring leader Cornell Mitchell -- was 25.

They all got mandatory life sentences with no possibility of parole. Mr. Lehman got a lifetime to pay for a mistake made by someone who was still two years from being old enough to drive.

For some remorseless or sociopathic killers, that would be appropriate.

But Mr. Lehman appears to be neither remorseless nor sociopathic.

Now a nearly 40-year-old inmate at Rockview state prison, he is racked with guilt, a prisoner of his own conscience.

Surely we can't say that of all juvenile lifers -- and the U.S. Supreme court did not mandate that they ever be released. Some are dangerous and must be separated from society.

But they all should at least get a fair hearing on that matter.

Yes, it would be time-consuming and costly to redo 11 sentencing hearings in York County.

But no one ever said justice was easy or cheap.

It ought to at least be fair -- and it is certainly not fair that Jordan Wallick might some day get a chance at release while Michael Lehman does not.